


The Great War

by entwashian



Category: Fifth Element (1997)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-23
Updated: 2007-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entwashian/pseuds/entwashian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Eisoj5 requested a story about what happened to Billy after the opening scene, but this turned out to be mostly backstory. ::facepalm::</p><p>Written for Eisoj5</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Great War

**Author's Note:**

> Eisoj5 requested a story about what happened to Billy after the opening scene, but this turned out to be mostly backstory. ::facepalm::
> 
> Written for Eisoj5

 

 

When Billy is just a boy, Teddy Roosevelt is President of the United States.

"He's the greatest man alive," says Billy's mother, while she fries up sausages for Billy, his father, and his grandfather's breakfast.

"He takes the side of the common man against big business," says Billy's father, without glancing up from his newspaper.

"He's a Rough Rider," says Billy's grandfather, stealing the pad of butter from beneath his son-in-law's blindly groping fingers.

Billy doesn't quite know what that last thing is, but it sounds the most exciting.

*****

In 1906, Billy's schoolmaster shows him the place on the globe where a tiny strip of land connects North America and South America. Where they're building a canal so that boats will be able to sail _through_ , instead of all the way `round.

Teddy Roosevelt is responsible for the project, of course, and he's leaving the United States so that he can visit the construction site. He's the first President to go abroad while in office, and this move causes many a titter amongst the more well-to-do townsfolk.

Billy ignores them, because he's seen pictures of the big steamer ships full of cargo, and figures his mother was right, all along.

*****

In 1910, no longer President, Teddy returns from a nearly year-long African safari. Billy reads about it in all the papers and magazines; pictures and engraving accompany some of the articles, and Billy copies them down onto his own sheets of paper. He tries to get the proportion of the hippopotamus' tusks just right, tries to convey the sheer bulk of the elephant onto the page.

One paper publishes the game list of all the specimens of animals Roosevelt hunted; he killed more types of animals in less than one year than Billy's seen in his entire life. ` _....Lion = 9, Hyena = 5, Elephant = 8, Rhinoceros (square mouth) = 5, Rhinoceros (hook lipped) = 8...._ '

Billy's mother won't ever tell him what his grandfather did for a living, but apparently it involved a lot of moving around. Billy's father is a shoe maker, and when Billy announces that he's leaving to seek adventure and to make his own way in the world, his father smiles proudly, and gives his son a wad of cash that must amount to more than what he earns in three months of cobbling.

Billy thinks about going south, to the dark, hot jungles, and to the fabled canal, but he's read of cities in Europe where there's art found not only framed and hung on the walls of large buildings, but whose buildings themselves are art, hundreds of years old.

Billy heads east.

*****

In France, he finds the world of art in revolution, and he's suddenly glad he rarely does more than charcoal sketches. Everywhere he goes, Billy faithfully copies down what he sees: landscapes & cityscapes; bridges, tombstones, cafés, & cathedrals.

By 1912, Billy has ended up in Nice, with employment as a clerk, when his mother includes a newspaper clipping along with the letter she sends. _`Col. Roosevelt delivered part of his address with the bullet in his body, his blood staining his white vest as he spoke to a huge throng at the auditorium.'_ The would-be assassin was captured without further incident, and Roosevelt was released from the hospital in just days.

Billy tacks the newspaper clipping to the wall of the room he's been renting for three months. He realizes with a start that his sketch journal has a thin film of dust on the cover.

Within a week, he's packed and headed south to Italy, where he's heard they have ancient ruins.

*****

He's in Florence, painstakingly documenting in his journal every detail of a particularly elaborate frieze, when he runs into the professor for the first time, or, rather, when the professor stumbles over him.

Billy's been sitting in the same place for hours, working, and the professor has perhaps had too much grappa, in celebration of what Billy learns with amazement is a grant that the professor has won to start his own archaeological study at a site in Egypt.

The professor picks up the journal he has knocked out of Billy's hands, and pages through the images slowly, moving the book further or closer as needed in order for his eyes to focus. He remarks with surprise and pleasure that Billy's works are quite good, indeed, and inquires if Billy has ever given a thought about going to Africa.

A few hours later, Billy has a new job, and has begun to get outfitted for the journey. They are to embark within a week. It is December 1913.

The job isn't as great an adventure as Billy thought it would be. Egypt is mostly desert; or rather, the part the professor is interested in is. Billy hasn't seen even one rhinoceros.

Mainly, he just copies down everything he does see, like he always has, and tries not do doze off as the professor mulls over possible translations of the temple's hieroglyphs out loud. He draws boats -- many, many boats -- and dreams of sending them through a canal. Though it's not nearly as grand as the one in Panama, there is a canal out here, in Egypt. Sometimes he idly dreams of taking a day or two to go see it.

At night in the village, Billy tries to wash the taste of dust from his mouth. On occasion, the local priest comes to visit, and his conversations with the professor are free-flowing, as is the wine. Billy lies on his cot and tries to remember the names of all the animals on Teddy Roosevelt's African safari list.

In the mornings, Billy uses a small, dingy mirror and a razor to keep his face clean-shaven, though many of the men in Egypt wear beards. The village boys, even the ones who don't work on site with them, come to see Billy and the professor off to the temple each morning. They laugh, and kick up dust at one another, until the professor loses his temper and begins to curse at them in Italian.

In July of 1914, they get word that some European royal or other has been assassinated, and that several countries are very agitated about it. But the professor doesn't seem particularly worried, and Billy agrees, at least until August 3, when Great Britain declares war on Germany, and attacks several of her African colonies.

Billy can't convince the professor to be concerned about the state of affairs, but he can start carrying a pistol to the site every day in his own pack.

*****

On November 23, 1914, Billy sweeps aside the scraps of paper he's been working on to find a new, blank page in his book. His hands work fast, recording what his eyes see before he has the chance to process _it_. **Them.**

He drops his pad of paper when the professor falls, and goes for his gun. The priest is pleading with him, hands held out in supplication, but all Billy sees is the bulk of the Thing. It's at least twice as broad in the shoulders as he is, and taller. It's wearing a suit or shell made out of bronze, or brass, or some other metal alloy Billy's never heard of. And it's advancing toward him.

He takes the course of action that seems wisest, and fires the gun.

*****

It's May of 1915. The professor has just returned to Egypt from Italy, a trip made with the hope of restoring the funding of their expedition, which has been cut off with no warning.

"It is no use," says the professor, shaking his head. "Italy has entered the war. There is no money left to be had for scholarly pursuits."

Billy takes a good look at the professor then, and realizes what the folk at the university back in Florence must have seen. The professor hasn't bothered to have his hair clipped in months; it stands up against his head in white, fluffy tufts. His skin has burnt and darkened from too many Egyptian afternoons spent in the desert, and his clothes are worn and ragged. Simply put, he looks like a man driven mad by sunstroke.

Billy can only hope that the professor didn't try to convince the trustees in Florence that he'd seen for himself an alien life form.

"Do not worry, my friend," the priest says, wringing his hands. "We shall find a way to continue spreading the word of our lord."

Billy looks down at the paper on the table, at the latest work the priest has bidden him to create. It depicts the end of the world, what would happen if ultimate evil used the four elemental stones as his own weapon.

"What about the Americans?" Billy asks. The priest and the professor turn to look at him. "The war," Billy elaborates. "Will they enter it?"

"There's no reason to think so," replies the professor.

"It doesn't concern them," adds the priest.

"Shouldn't it?" Billy frowns. "It's not as if the war is just in Europe any more."

"True, true, but the Americans only seem interested in what happens in their small corner of the world." The professor polishes his spectacles with the hem of his shirt.

"There, now, enough talk. Let us return to our business," the priest breaks in, gesturing at the drawing that Billy hasn't yet told him is finished. "We are running out of time."

"Time? We have three hundred years," Billy says, crossing his arms over his chest, and leaving a smear of graphite down one of his sleeves.

"Yet as the years draw us further away from our meeting with the lord, we begin to forget all that our ears have heard, and all that our eyes have seen."

"Time is not important. Only life is important," Billy quotes, and stands up from his seat at the table. He's come to a decision.

*****

The French are more than happy to enlist a daredevil American. They give him a message, a motorcycle, and a mask. The gas mask resembles the face of the Other a little too closely for Billy's liking, but he would rather wear it than die slowly in considerable pain.

He flies to and fro over the French countryside on his motorbike, delivering messages and replies, and though Billy has seen much of the country before, he's never seen it like this.

It seems to be constantly raining, and Billy soon becomes a self-proclaimed expert on mud banks. He hardly ever sees a person on the roads, and when he does, he can never be sure whether it's a ghost or just another refugee.

In November 1918, when the war is finally over (and has it really been only three and a half years?), Billy considers returning to Egypt, but he doesn't know what, or who, he would find there. Besides, it's easy for an American soldier to find transport back to the States.

*****

October 27, 1928 is the seventieth anniversary of Teddy Roosevelt's birth, and Billy is blissfully unaware. He's sitting on his front lawn, his daughter slowly crawling across the grass toward him. She pauses to grab at something with her right hand, then proudly waves her newfound treasure high in the air.

"That's right, Emily," Billy says, scooping up the baby and taking the stone from her hand. "Earth is one of the four sacred elements that will help to save the world one day." Emily burbles happily, and Billy begins to tell her of his grand Egyptian adventure.

 


End file.
